How to Learn Paleobotany

Learn how plants become fossils: compression, impression, permineralization, amber preservation, and carbonization. Study taphonomic processes that control which plant parts enter the fossil record and the biases inherent in fossil preservation.

Study the origin of land plants from green algal ancestors, the evolution of key adaptations (cuticle, stomata, vascular tissue), and the earliest plant fossils from the Silurian and Devonian including Cooksonia and the Rhynie Chert flora.

Explore the great coal-forming forests of the Carboniferous: lycopsid trees, tree ferns, sphenopsids, and early seed plants. Understand coal ball analysis, the evolution of seeds, and the ecological dynamics of these ancient wetland ecosystems.

Study gymnosperm-dominated Mesozoic floras, the origin and early diversification of flowering plants, and the ecological revolution of the Cretaceous. Learn about Darwin's 'abominable mystery' and current hypotheses for angiosperm origins.

Develop skills in pollen and spore identification, pollen diagram construction, and biostratigraphy. Learn paleoclimate reconstruction techniques including Leaf Margin Analysis, CLAMP, stomatal index methods, and nearest living relative approaches.

Examine the development of modern plant communities from the Paleocene to the Quaternary, including grassland expansion, Ice Age vegetation dynamics, and human impacts. Connect paleobotanical data to modern climate change science.

Learn modern techniques in paleobotany: X-ray computed tomography of fossils, synchrotron imaging, isotope geochemistry, phylogenetic analysis of fossil taxa, and molecular clock approaches. Explore frontier research questions in plant evolution.